


Revenge and understanding

by qwertysweetea



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bitterness, Empath Will Graham, Empathy, Enemies to Friends, Feelings, French Kissing, Hurt No Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Mental Anguish, Mutually Unrequited, Revenge, Rough Kissing, Suicidal Thoughts, Tags Are Hard, Understanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 14:53:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14896646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwertysweetea/pseuds/qwertysweetea
Summary: He hears Chilton curse, small and angry, under his breath. Then he curses again, this time a raw burst of emotion erupting from his throat. It cracks like a dry cough. Reality has set in now the blood has washed away.“I can’t help but wonder what he would think if he knew how close this experience could have brought us. I suppose that gets to be a small, inconsequential justice for me. That the speculation could be buzzing around his head."[Set during Yakimono]Chilton shows up at Will's house a little worse for wear, looking for a shower, understanding, and an opportunity get even with Hannibal in the small ways that he can. Will is hit in the chest by the intensity of his emotions, and finds himself wanting to help his former psychiatrist in any way he can.





	Revenge and understanding

Will looked in Chilton’s his bag as he showered, treading as lightly on his own old, wooden flooring as on forest ground during hunting season. Clothes, a passport, a gun, a packed lunch; besides the obvious, all it showed was that Hannibal had a sick sense of humour. There was nothing he could have given Chilton to knock him off the path he’d designed for him.

He would run. He would get killed running. Bang bang, the truth dies. They’ll find Abel Gideon in his lunchbox, surrounded by grapes and cheese, and some kind of bread Will had only ever seen served with Tapas far too expensive to warrant ordering. They’ll see the passport and know that they were justified in doing it. Just another kill by a killer they’ll get badges for executing before trial.

He hears Chilton curse, small and angry, under his breath. Then he curses again, this time a raw burst of emotion erupting from his throat. It cracks like a dry cough. Reality has set in now the blood has washed away, and Will is hit in the chest with a sudden concern that the gun might not have been packed by Hannibal. Logic wants to argue, and yet that little voice in the back of his head tells him that he is right.

His pain is seeping out from under the door and Will is soaking it up like a sponge.

For the first time, Will feels the need to make his presence known. His fist hovers close to the door, contemplating knocking, possibilities like a storm in his mind; Chilton wasn’t the type of man who accepted needing to be helped gracefully, and yet he’d sought it out in Will. Maybe his willingness was expended with that action. Will could hear his name being mixed with curses and a series of gentle thuds as he slumped to the floor, letting the water run over him until his skin was red and scorched with the excessive heat of the shower.

Or maybe, just maybe, Chilton was no different to any other man in distress: hoping someone will see past the aggression and resistance, and see how much he wanted to be helped… saved.

The door opens to Chilton, towel held closed around his waist. His face is still a sickly colour and he’s holding his mouth awkwardly like he’s trying to stop himself throwing up, but he’s more himself than Will has ever seen him before.

There is something settling about that.

“Frederick…” Will starts, but his words have dissipated in his throat and he doesn’t know what he had planned to say to him.

Chilton did. With eyebrows knitted and jaw tense, he replied: “I’m not going to.” There is a sharpness to his voice. “My only agenda has been to live. That hadn’t changed.” He walks past Will to his bag and pulls out a shirt and trousers without seeming to focus on them.

Regardless of how comfortable the words sound in his mouth, there is an unmistakable tang to them that Will recognises as an uncertain certainty.

Chilton hears it in his own voice too. Without looking up, he adds “If I was…” they stick there while he tries to get a handle on them. “If I thought, for one moment, that I was going to then that moment has passed.”

The desperation is still there, but for a few moments it is overshadowed by Will’s own pity. Without realising it, he has taken a step into Chilton’s space and instead of moving back to reclaim it, Chilton’s eyes have stopped their dance over everything and nothing in front of him, to focus somewhere in the air between Will and himself.

“I understand you taking it with you when you leave me to get changed.” Resignation at the forefront. “Just know, I wouldn’t want to make as much of a mess in your home as he left in mine.”

When Will leaves him to change, he makes a point of taking the gun with him. “Just know, Frederick-” he says, somewhat under his breath “-that it’s not the mess that I’m concerned about.”

Chilton mutters as the bathroom door closes again but the words are lost somewhere in the space between them.

When Chilton re-joins him downstairs, dry and dressed, the dark colours of his clothing making him look far too pale, he makes a point of giving it back to him.

The air is heavy, oppressive almost; Chilton’s chilled skin knocks into his. It’s such a small thing that Will is sure that neither of them should have noticed and yet Chilton is staring at their hands with eyes wider than they should have been and the breath has caught in Will’s throat, because suddenly the expressions on the Doctor’s face has shifted.

He is still in pain, and scared; above all he wants to squeeze his eyes shut and open them up to his office at his mental hospital, back in the days when all he knew of the Chesapeake Ripper was restricted to the few files Jack had sent by secure post: before Abel Gideon had been admitted, before he’d been invited to Hannibal Lecter’s dinner table, before Will Graham was anything more than an interesting conversation over drinks. 

But he wants a lot more right now. He wants and _needs_ so hard that he looks like he could collapse in on himself.

He wants Will Graham to tell him that he knows how to turn this around, he wants to be grounded by him, he wants to show his gratitude and he wants to do it in a way that will hurt Lecter. He wants Will to forgive him for all of those thoughts involving being dangerous intimate with him.

“You’re giving me whiplash, Frederick.”

“I’m a selfish man by nature, Will. Sometimes I catch myself off-guard with just how hardwired those thoughts are. I want nothing more than for my life to go back to normal, but that’s not on the cards. Since my life has been destroyed for the foreseeable future, I would be happy to settle with getting even…”

“Your first instinct being, to hurt me to hurt him.” Will doesn’t sound entirely convinced. Frederick is an asshole and a sadist, but he isn’t an assailant and he certainly isn’t a killer.

“Not at all. My first instinct being to comfort myself, and indulge in the knowledge that doing so his hurting him. And it would hurt him,” Chilton clarified. "Don’t mistake my forthrightness with intention. You are an exceptional man, Will. In another life, we might have even been friends…”

“Is that not what we are, Frederick?”

“Acquaintances bound by unfortunate circumstance.” As he speaks, he takes his turn to walk into Will’s space. “We could have been more than that, maybe, in a future I no longer see myself capable of reaching.”

Chilton is closer than he realises for a short while; he's close enough to touch. He hesitates when he places a hand on Will’s chest. Will lets him, and Chilton’s shoulder drop slightly as he relaxes into the gentle rise and fall that accompanies Will’s breathing. His hand hovers, fingers tense on the fabric and eyebrows knit again as though he is trying to talk himself out of doing what he knows he has to.

Will gets the distinct impression that Chilton would be happy to stay that way for as long as he could, and yet the thought is pressing down on him with the soft understanding on Will’s face: his time was up long before he had arrived at Will’s door.

Chilton knows that this had never been a part of Hannibal’s plan when he was folding a poor selection of his clothes into his bags, waiting for him to arrive home. He’d expected him to get caught on the road, en route the airport. He wouldn’t have expected him to come to Wolftrap. Behind all of the fear and anger, he feels the spark of superiority.

“I can’t help but wonder what he would think if he knew how close this experience could have brought us. I suppose that gets to be a small, inconsequential justice for me. That the speculation could be buzzing around his head like a fly he just can’t swat away, once he finds out I visited you. If I felt less guilty for it, felt more like myself, I would be kissing you with a force that would convey exactly how I feel, right now. I'd leave them looking tender, abused. I would want him to imagine for just one moment that you gave in to me so willingly.

"I can't hunt the hunter, but I have the opportunity to wound him."

A smile danced on the corners of Will's lips with the thought; he felt a flare of understanding where Chilton's fingers pulse over his shirt. Will is reminded that it feels wonderful to be understood.

Empathy disorder. Exceptionally perceptive. Equally as understanding.

Just as wronged. Just as angry. Just as desperate to get even.

Barely a breath passes Chilton’s lips before Will’s are on his, soft and eager, waiting for him to take them in every way he needs. And Chilton does, acting on instinct before his mind catches up and takes over. His feelings, wants and passions all reach boiling point at once.

Will feels the vice-like pressure of Chilton’s hand as it closes on the back of his head, noses digging into each other, teeth clashing; then there is depth and warmth as the Doctor’s tongue laps into his mouth. Will can feel himself being claimed; the intent is pouring out of every part of Chilton. The deeper he kisses, the stronger Will feels it. If he could breathe, he would groan. It built up in his chest.

Chilton’s breath is shaky in his throat when he pulls away; his hand relents on the back of Will’s head and it takes more control than Will is willing to admit to at the moment to stop him from following him away, dive back into the kiss and claim Frederick in the way he was claimed by him.

He almost regrets calling Jack.

“Bring your bags downstairs, Frederick."


End file.
